THE CAT'S PAJAMAS II

Tad Tuleja

 

A collection of the the (mostly) true origins of familiar phrases:

 

ALERT! This post contains a term that might be offensive to some.

 

ASS FROM A HOLE IN THE GROUND

To not know your ass from a hole in the ground is an insult which means a person has no idea what he's doing. It comes from the Appalachian woodsmen of the 1830's, who used it to mock the ignorance of recent arrivals from the Eastern seaboard. These newcomers had no pioneering experience and really didn't know adzes (wood trimming tools) from hoes. So the expression was, "He doesn't know an adze from a hoe." Since the mountain dialect was unfamiliar to them, the newbies misread the insult as one of general, not technological, rough humor. By 1842, the saying had been completely transformed in the vernacular into the modern, crude form.